Graphicacy and Modelling: Establishing research agendas in education
This book is a development of the 2010 IDATER Online Conference Book concerning Graphicacy and Modelling, which can be downloaded from the Institutional Repository at Loughborough University. The Conference was jointly organised by the Design Education Research Group (DERG) at Loughborough and the Technology Education Research Group (TERG) at the University of Limerick, where an associated event was held. The conference created much interest and debate. This book reflects those on-going conversations and is a further step towards establishing research agendas for graphicacy and modelling in education.
The book identifies four main sections and presents edited contributions from over 12 authors within these categories.
- General overview – Importance
- Human Capacity – Exploring definition and transfer
- Curriculum and Context
- Concerns/applications/etc.
The 2010 Conference was an attempt to draw ‘lines in the sand’ indicating the current status of research in different areas of graphicacy and modelling in education. This revision begins the process of analysing the contexts of these contributions and classifying those matters to which the papers draw attention before formulating associated research agendas.
Research Agendas for Graphicacy in Education
Some of the ‘lines in the sand’ that were identified from one of the papers at the 2010 conference (‘Continuity and progression in graphicacy’, Danos and Norman) and the associated research agendas are shown below.
Lines in the sand were suggested to be:
- Available literature is limited
- A fit-for-purpose taxonomy has been developed
- Its use can highlight cross-curricular links
- Tasks conducted within practice yield useful level descriptors
- An approach to co-research has been identified
Research agendas were proposed as:
- Can co-research be used to gather data on a significant scale?…. even internationally?
- Would well-defined level descriptors lead to improved teaching and assessment?
- … and school graphicacy audits and policies as for literacy and numeracy?
- Would educational standards improve as a result of such ‘whole school’ strategies?
- Would the value of design education be more recognised?
We would welcome any comments on these, or any other matters that you see as important to research in graphicacy and modelling within education by contacting books@ldpress.co.uk
